Nichols Martin
Airbus‘ defense and space division has partnered with Mercury Systems to study, develop, demonstrate, verify and certify technologies for autonomous flights.
The two companies said Tuesday they will jointly work on autonomous and flight control programs with a focus on algorithms and the environments where the systems will operate.
Airbus and Mercury have signed a framework cooperation agreement to formalize the new partnership. Airbus offers aircraft, defense and Earth observation products while Mercury focuses on avionics and mission computing.
The partnership builds on past collaborations between the two, including the development of a Mercury-made computing platform used in Airbus’ A3R automatic air-refueling system.
Didier Thibaud, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Mercury, said the partnership strengthens the relationship between the companies for further development of autonomous technology.
